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I really don't think you or Darth appreciate the game theory at play in these systems and why this incentive structure is so important.
This is definitely true for me. I don't know much. It's just a hunch.
What does stacker have that can't be accomplished on nostr long form with no territories and no centralized rewards and credit system?
Without an incentive (reward) for zapping, people just freeride. No one zaps on nostr (essentially) and everyone zaps here (essentially).
There are many downstream effects of this.
  • I think the way we just scroll past stuff, on other platforms, is partially a result of not having an incentive (reward) for engaging with it.
  • When people aren't zapping, good content doesn't get elevated out of the noise, which makes it even harder to find good content.
  • Without zapping, people will stop paying to post
  • More importantly, without zapping, people will stop putting in the extra thought that currently goes into SN posts and comments.
The whole thing falls apart without the rewards system. If you think it's hard for newcomers now, the world without rewards would be so much more challenging (see nostr). Only people with established sycophantic followings would get zapped on their posts.
Perhaps not surprising, then, that the person who's been here the longest and has the most sycophantic following is leading this effort.
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Maybe once we scale considerably, this will change. Nostr is still tiny.
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Nostr is much larger than Stacker News
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Yes. and still small right? Do you think nostr has a future?
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Sure, but more as the backbone of different web services. Fountain, for instance, is a nostr client and it's amazing.
For text based discussions, nostr clients pale in comparison to Stacker News, though, despite having far more users.
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I imagine nostr long form will get a lot better with time. Big picture, I am not sure if a centralized service is where I want to be sharing. I like a lot about stacker but I wonder if there may be fundamental aspects that I don't feel aligned with.
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It likely will get better with time, but I'll bet some of that comes from adopting similar incentives to what SN has.
SN is working on decentralizing. Territories were the first step on that journey. Attached wallets are the second. You can already cross-post to nostr from here, which I do.
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I am hopeful that SN will move toward being more decentralization. I appreciate your insights. I'm always learning.
nostr is a dead zone where nobody other than known faces in the btc world get any zaps. no incentive really to be there, SN is the only place where zaps flow both ways, every other thing i have seen to earn zaps, maybe apart from fountain, is just shit
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I can see that. I know that is one thing that attracted me here in the first place. People seem to actually zap. But are they liking my content actually or just gaming the board?
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They are responding to incentives. You can choose to interpret that as "gaming" if you like, but the lack of zaps on nostr doesn't mean posts their are bad. That's also people responding to incentives.
Good systems yield good results. SN has better results (i.e. quality discussions), therefor it is a better system.
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i tend to zap people that comment on my questions in general, just as a matter of habit, then if i see something extra funny etc, i zap a bit more. i think we all benefit in the end tho
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